Does Ephesians 5:21 teach mutual submission?
“This view of mutual submission means that a husband is not in fact called to be the leader of his family nor is a wife called to follow her husband’s leadership. So which interpretation is right?” - Denny Burk
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There are some people using the term “physical abuse” in this thread as if it is a line that should not be crossed. Apparently, emotional abuse or perhaps other kinds of abuse is not crossing the line for them. That is in my opinion typically a sign of old school thinking, or in other words, on this particular issue, bad thinking.
I believe any kind of abuse justifies a spouse leaving a marriage. Emotional abuse is probably much worse than physical abuse in some ways. No, you can’t call the police in those situations but the spouse probably should at least separate anyway at a certain point.
[GregH]There are some people using the term “physical abuse” in this thread as if it is a line that should not be crossed. Apparently, emotional abuse or perhaps other kinds of abuse is not crossing the line for them.
- Physical abuse is easy to define. A definite line that should not be crossed!
- Emotional abuse is very hard to quantify
Trust me … as a retired pastor
GregH, you raise a good point. The problem with equating emotional abuse with physical abuse is that claims of the former can often be subjective or flatly untrue. If what the wife claims to be emotional abuse has been witnessed by others or admitted by the husband, and if the behavior was in fact abusive and unrepentant, that’s one thing. But if the wife claims abuse without witnesses or confession, the claim has to be investigated rather than just accepted. If the claims are the basis for a divorce filing, the church leadership has to verify it one way or another. The simple claim that “he was emotionally abusive” isn’t by itself a get out of marriage (or submission) free card, though many are happy to use it that way. I hope what you meant to say was, “I believe any kind of abuse justifies a spouse leaving a marriage” if the behavior in question was actually abusive, has been verified by the church, and is unrepentant.
My previous comment springs from, among other things, a conversation with a godly friend who for decades had a divorce practice in which he limited his representation to the innocent or non-moving spouse. (Sometimes this might mean representing the moving spouse who in fact had biblical grounds and where reconciliation was genuinely impossible, but usually it meant defending against an unwanted divorce.) His conclusion after all those years was that adultery as a ground for divorce had to mean physical adultery rather than mental adultery and that abuse had to mean physical abuse rather than emotional abuse, precisely because it was very common for spouses to lie, exaggerate, or misperceive non-abusive behavior as abusive.
[dmyers]I hope what you meant to say was, “I believe any kind of abuse justifies a spouse leaving a marriage” if the behavior in question was actually abusive, has been verified by the church, and is unrepentant.
No, I really did not mean what you might have hoped me to mean. I think a person who is emotionally abused is justified in leaving her marriage regardless of whether the church verifies it or not. The church does not have the power to force people to be married. Of course, they can throw her out if they wish if she decides to take care of her emotional health; I would say that she is better off if they do.
In other words, it is an individual decision that a person has to make and live with. I don’t know many church leaders that I would feel comfortable with making that decision for someone else. Maybe they would fit on one hand in fact.
Well, your view is completely unbiblical. Church leadership should be involved in every divorce of its members, to exonerate any innocent party and to discipline any errant party. Any member who doesn’t cooperate with that process should be disciplined for their non-cooperation — discipline to which they agreed in advance when they joined the church. Your attitude is common, which is part of the reason divorce in the church is so common: I come first, and I don’t have to submit to church authority (just like a wife doesn’t really have to submit to her husband unless she wants to). If you don’t trust the leadership of your church to handle disciplinary issues wisely, you’re in the wrong church. Unless you just don’t want to submit to any church authority, so changing churches wouldn’t matter.
[dmyers]Well, your view is completely unbiblical. Church leadership should be involved in every divorce of its members, to exonerate any innocent party and to discipline any errant party. Any member who doesn’t cooperate with that process should be disciplined for their non-cooperation — discipline to which they agreed in advance when they joined the church. Your attitude is common, which is part of the reason divorce in the church is so common: I come first, and I don’t have to submit to church authority (just like a wife doesn’t really have to submit to her husband unless she wants to). If you don’t trust the leadership of your church to handle disciplinary issues wisely, you’re in the wrong church. Unless you just don’t want to submit to any church authority, so changing churches wouldn’t matter.
I don’t see any Biblical evidence that churches should be granting permission for marriage or divorce.
I would not in fact attend any church that tried to control marriages of its members and I certainly would not attend any church that disciplined a victim of abuse simply because they were not able to “verify” the abuse (which by the way is often impossible). I would tell any victim to run (not walk) away from a church that pressured her to stay in an abusive marriage simply because they could not verify the abuse. Same goes for a church that tried to discipline her for divorce in those circumstances.
Well … this thread is moving along nicely .. I guess …
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
[TylerR]Well … this thread is moving along nicely .. I guess …
On the contrary, I think it’s valuable to see how our ostensibly most conservative, most Bible-believing churches are rife with people who will brag about their rejection of the Bible and of church discipline when they disagree with either.
Reminder: Resources and attributes church leaders lack:
- Not omnipresent
- Not omniscient
- Cannot subpoena
- Do not have the investigative resources of the FBI / CIA
- Cannot inject truth serum or administer polygraph tests
Meanwhile the pastor has to labor in the Word to prepare feast of truth for God’s people when they gather for worship
Image: Tell me about your marriage
[dmyers]On the contrary, I think it’s valuable to see how our ostensibly most conservative, most Bible-believing churches are rife with people who will brag about their rejection of the Bible and of church discipline when they disagree with either.
I make no apology for what I said. Your words are dishonest and ungracious in your representation of what I said. However, it is not hard to see through the emotion of your writing and guess that you have been personally impacted by these things. For that reason, I have no ill will.
I’m one who sees emotional abuse as a very real sin, but at the same time, I also think church leadership ought to be involved in helping couples (individuals) see their sin and repent of it. Easy? No, but it’s what the church is called to do, and a lot of times, people really don’t hide their sin very well because they don’t view it as sin, or they are observed by others. In the case of marriage, kids see, and friends see. The process, as I understand it, would involve determining whether physical or emotional abuse occurred, and then determining a path out—and whether that would involve counseling, separation, or even divorce would be determined in that process, using outside experts as necessary.
Side note: I am fully aware that this view of mine makes many people cringe, and reasonably so, because so many churches have made a total hash of the process of church discipline per Matthew 18 and other passages. That noted, doing this to some degree seems to be what God calls the church to do. We don’t get a “this is tough” card to dodge it.
To use moving as an example, moving can be a good example of submission, but it can be a form of emotional abuse if the motive is evil. For example, husband (wife) observes that wife (husband) is attached to church/family/friends in one location and wants to “get her (him) away” from that network—e.g. from jealousy. He knows the impact it will have on her, possibly leading to depression, etc.. Now is that legitimate headship, or emotional abuse?
Alternatively, party 1 wants party 2 to provide something “just for party 1” whenever party 2 does anything nice for other parties, resorting to great anger when that’s more than party 2 can do in the time frame party 1 desires.
Another example; party 1 claims abuse by party 2, but when asked what the details of said abuse might be, simply says that one doesn’t question the victim. Not talking about Perry Mason doing cross examination here, just wanting a basic accusation. I’d argue that claiming abuse without substantiating it is itself….emotional abuse, and I’ve seen a number of people doing it—in some circles, it seems to be a “trump card” they think they can play to automatically get their way.
(real examples, BTW)
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
[GregH]. I think a person who is emotionally abused is justified in leaving her marriage …
interesting choice of pronoun
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
[Jim]
- Physical abuse is easy to define. A definite line that should not be crossed!
- Emotional abuse is very hard to quantify
I think the main issue we have with the concept of “emotional abuse” is exactly what Jim says here. I’ve heard a new college graduate (one who was departing the Christian faith) claim she was “emotionally abused” because of her being raised with Christian teaching which left her with guilt she now can’t shed for doing things she no longer claims to see as wrong.
There must be very clear lines (as Jim said about physical abuse), or anyone can claim emotional abuse, and no one else can say anything. Without an accepted objective definition, it gets very close to the mindset from Judges — “every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
Dave Barnhart
[dcbii]I think the main issue we have with the concept of “emotional abuse” is exactly what Jim says here. I’ve heard a new college graduate (one who was departing the Christian faith) claim she was “emotionally abused” because of her being raised with Christian teaching which left her with guilt she now can’t shed for doing things she no longer claims to see as wrong.
There must be very clear lines (as Jim said about physical abuse), or anyone can claim emotional abuse, and no one else can say anything. Without an accepted objective definition, it gets very close to the mindset from Judges — “every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
I am not saying that it is easy. I actually don’t know that defining lines in physical abuse is too easy either. But there are experts that have done a lot of work in this area. Leslie Vernick is one on the Christian side and perhaps my favorite would be Dr. Diane Langberg. For me, emotional abuse is not just fighting but is a form of control that substantially damages the victim’s capacity to operate/think normally. There are some very strange things that go on—Stockholm Syndome kinds of things.
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